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Thursday, Apr 21, 2005

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None will be spared: Pranab

Special Correspondent

Kargil deal: `No clean chit was given to anyone in the first affidavit''

CAUGHT IN CONTROVERSY: Former Defence Minister and JD(U) leader George Fernandes arriving at the Parliament House on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: The Government assured Parliament on Wednesday that it was committed to taking strict action against officers and authorities, including the former Defence Minister, if it was found that the "excuse of Kargil" was taken to make purchases with the motive of personal benefit in violation of rules and regulations.

Making a statement in both Houses on the filing of the second affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said that a reading of the two affidavits made it clear that "no clean chit" had been given to anyone in the first affidavit filed by the Centre on March 10 nor had there been any "U-turn" between the first and the second affidavits.

"While the first affidavit explains the procedure of procurement and details the action taken by the Government, the second affidavit charts out the future course of action contemplated by the Government," the statement said. The Government has decided to hand over 23 cases, included in the Comptroller and Auditor-General's (CAG) report, to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The first affidavit had two parts. The first dealing with the procedures clarified that the modified procedure on June 21, 1999 was meant to shorten the time-frame, particularly for imports of items specifically required for the Kargil war. "This modified procedure was issued without relaxing the requirement of the Defence Procurement Procedure, 1992. This is also reflected in the comments of the CAG. However, this part of the affidavit did not comment on whether this procedure was correctly followed while affecting procurement."

The second part dealt with the action taken by the Government on the CAG and the Central Vigilance Commission report and the status of the Public Accounts Committee report.

It dealt with five points, including that 11 of the 35 paragraphs contained in the CAG report were vetted, and the remaining were at various stages of examination; after the expiry of the term of the Tehelka Commission, transactions of hand held thermal imager and terminally guided munition formed part of the CAG report, had been referred to the CBI.

The second part of the first affidavit also said that the CVC's observations on involvement of middlemen and the need to make the procurement procedures more transparent were being addressed.

As regards individual cases examined by the CVC, administrative action has been taken against the guilty officials in three cases, 12 cases were closed by the CVC and 21 cases were still under examination.

Three cases referred to in the CVC report, which also found mention in the Tehelka tapes (T-90S tanks, the Armoured recovery vehicle and up-gunning of 130 mm M-46 field gun to 155 mm calibre) were now referred to the CBI.

Mr. Mukherjee said that in compliance of the Supreme Court order of March 14, the additional affidavit was filed on April 13. This stressed the future course of action to be taken on the CAG report.

"The affidavit points out that five cases of procurement were again scrutinised in detail with a view to fix responsibility."

It also stated that since the CAG report had brought out that the "excuse of Kargil" was citied to push through defence procurements that would otherwise have been scrutinised more closely, thereby suggesting a serious misconduct on the part of officials/authorities in the Government including the then Defence Minister, the Government had decided to refer 23 cases included in the CAG report to the CBI.

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